Five Things That Never Happened To Angel
by snarryvader81
Summary: In which two Slayers and a vampire die, Angel muses on an unexpected love, Sunnydale learns true terror, and Liam discovers mortality.


**1**

His father may have thought that he deserved it, but he never said so to Liam's face.

Instead, the old man would look in on him ever so often, his face stoic. Kathy hadn't left his room since she realized that he was on his deathbed, but their father barely spared a glance for her. His lips would tighten ever so slightly and his eyes would narrow at his son, who laid sweating and suffering on the bed, and he would turn away.

Liam never noticed him.

The madness had him, the doctor said. There were only a few hours left, now, as no one recovered after they started talking to people who weren't there.

Kathy had cried, but Liam had laughed, though whether it was at the doctor's words or at something only he could see no one knew.

Anna and their mother took turns sitting next to the bed, placing cool rags over his forehead, but they knew their efforts were in vain. Open sores covered his body, seeping pus and blood onto the sheets, and there was nothing they could do but pray for it to be over.

And it was, within the night.

The fever never broke, and Liam's consciousness never returned. It was a gentle death, but a painful one.

Liam's father wept his son's funeral.

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**2**

It could never work.

They were natural enemies, despite what he tried to tell himself. A soul hardly mattered. He was a vampire, one of the undead, a demonical abomination. Sexual relationships between such beings as he and humans consisted of violence and rape; romance was laughable.

But what _was_ he? Human, or demon? Man or monster?

He had a soul, the most base human thing, but yet when he looked in a mirror he couldn't see himself staring back.

He could never go out into the sunlight, never enter a church without discomfort. But he could _feel_. Demons didn't. They were blasé about everything, from the most gruesome tortures to the most passionate affairs.

Was he human? Was he demon?

Could the love between a vampire and a watcher ever work?

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**3**

She was good.

When he'd first heard the name 'Buffy', he'd laughed and made some smart remark about cheerleading, which Darla had rolled her eyes at.

"Don't underestimate a Slayer," she'd said, "no matter how many you've killed."

It had been Angelus's turn to roll his eyes, but Darla's words had been proven correct. Buffy Summers was skinny and blond, generically pretty and fragile, but she was stronger than any other Slayer he had fought. It wasn't even strictly physical strength - she was clever in battle, and she had a strong support system in her little 'friends'.

But, he loved a challenge.

Darla had grown increasingly annoyed with him over their three year stay in Sunnydale, while Spike had simply said that killing one Slayer only made another rise, so what was the point in it at all?

Spike never had understood the hunt.

The fool boy, Xander, was the first to go, followed by the other boy, Jesse, and then the red haired witch. She had screamed so prettily as she died.

Buffy, while injured, didn't break, so the Watcher followed. In contrast to the girl, he had died silently.

Faith Lehane, with her delightfully dark heart, had made a beautiful vampire, and the new watcher, Wyndham-Pryce, had shrieked more than the witch as he met his end.

And then came the grand finale.

Joyce Summers had been so trusting, letting her daughter's 'tutor' in. She had turned her back and never even knew what was coming.

Buffy was now fighting as hard as she ever had, and Angelus knew it was only a matter of time before she made a mistake. It came almost an hour into the battle, when she hesitated. Why, he didn't know, but she did.

Her blood made a type of grotesque art on the stone floor.

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**4**

Life cannot come from death.

That is one of the principles of the universe. Vampires are sterile. In a dead woman's womb, life could not spring forth.

But it had.

She didn't know why or how, but she had some inkling that the miracle conception might not have been that good of a thing, that maybe it was sign of something, something bad.

But bad or good, an omen or not, it was her child, the only one she would ever have, and she had gone through nine months of torturous _hunger_ and _bloodlust_ while carrying him, faced stares from coworkers and friends and other demons, all to just see his face.

Her muscles contracted painfully, and her legs went into a fit of spasms on the wet alley ground.

Life cannot come from death. Vampires can only kill, never give life.

"The car's coming," said Cordelia, nervously glancing up at Caritas's exit. Holtz was coming, they all knew he was, and he would have no mercy, just as Angel had had no mercy so many years before.

"Cordelia," she croaked, her hand clenching and unclenching against the ground.

"Angel?" She leaned over her and stared worriedly.

"Tell--tell him about me, please?"

The wood was in her heart in the next instant, before she lost her nerve.

Life cannot come from death.

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**5**

"You'll never _guess_ what the gypsies tried to give me."

Darla frowned and eyed Angelus, who sat calmly at the table, a glass of wine in hand and a languid smirk on his face. "Give you? Why would they give _you_ anything? You killed their little princess."

"Yes, that I did. And they were . . . shall we say, upset?" Angelus sipped his wine and stood up. "Very upset. Though--" He set his glass down on the edge of the table and advanced on her. "--not nearly as upset as I. You see, I was very, very fortunate today. And I dread to think what may have happened if I hadn't been. Who knows? I may have been cowering in that corner in the dark weeping when you came in, had I not been so _gloriously_ lucky." He grinned wolfishly.

"What are you trying to say?" Darla demanded.

"They got their witch doctor to try and curse me. She tried to call my soul back from the ether. Unfortunately for her, my soul had been there too long, and wasn't really happy to come back. My demon ripped it to shreds as soon as it tried to enter my body."

Darla stepped backwards, and Angelus continued.

"But, you see, Darla, I'm slightly, shall we say, upset with you. After all, you're the one who so generously gave me the gypsy girl the in the first place. But yet, there I was, about to be cursed. And that, really, really gets to me."

With a baring of teeth, he surged forward and jammed his previously concealed stake into Darla's chest. Her shock had barely registered on her face when she dissolved into dust.

Angelus smirked and picked up his wine glass.

"Remember, dear Darla, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

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**Author's Note:** It's been done a thousand times, I know. I believe this was a challenge somewhere, so the 'five things' idea wasn't mine. In the first one Angel dies from syphillis, if you couldn't tell, in the second one he's thinking about Giles, the third one is self explanatory, the forth idea I got from one of these 'five things' stories I was reading about Smallville, and the fifth one is also self explanatory.


End file.
